How to increase Soundcloud followers and plays

[ArchDemonXIII]

Since so many of us use Soundcloud, I thought it might be useful to share some tips I've learned on how to increase your plays and followers.

Comments: This is the big daddy of the bunch right here. I've noticed that the more comments you get, the more likely people are to listen to your track. Notice how when people you follow comment a track, it not only shows the comment, but makes that track show up in your dashboard feed? Well if the person that comments on your track has 200 followers, your track just got advertised to 200 people, with an endorsement. So how does one increase the comments on their track? Well, the answer is twofold.

First, comment on other people's tracks. The more you comment on other people's tracks, the more likely they are to return the favor. It makes the most sense to comment on styles you actually like, as a detailed comment is much more notable than "sweet track" or being overly critical.

Second, always respond to every comment you receive. Your replies add to your comment count, and subsequently to the chances someone will give your music a listen. Even a simple "thanks" "cheers" or a thanking them for listening/commenting/favorite-ing will not only boost your comments, but also makes the person feel appreciated and more likely to comment on future tracks. Also, every time you comment it, it goes back to the top of the dashboard feed

Tags: A lot of people seem to overlook this, but the more tags you add to a track, the more likely it is to show up in a search for a particular type of track.

Presentation: Add a graphic to your track. A new graphic for every song is ideal, but if you're feeling lazy, at least make a logo for yourself and add it to every track. Also, make sure to add a genre. Even if it's just something humorous that doesn't even do a good job of describing the song. Remember, most people aren't going to be going directly to your track, they're going to be picking songs from a long list of tracks.

Think about it: if you're looking at a list of tracks to listen to, which is more likely to grab your attention; the one that's just a name and a waveform or the one that has a bright shiny skull & crossbones and a label that says "threwyourmomdownthestep?"



Also, this may or may or may not directly have an effect on followers, but I think it's beneficial to remember to add your producer/band name to any track you plan to allow downloading of. You can always edit it out of the title that shows on Soundcloud but you're doing yourself a disservice if someone downloads a track and then weeks later is sitting there thinking "that song was awesome, I wish I remember where I got that." It reminds me of a tidbit I always tell anyone I know that plays in a live band: Until you are the headline act, you're never too big to tell the audience your band's name.


Now a couple things to avoid:

Spamming: You want people to listen to your tracks with an open mind, not give them a reason to ignore you or tell you that your s*** is wack. It's especially silly to do like I've seen some people do and leave a comment on someone else's track that just says something along the lines of come check out my tracks. That's just asking for a negative opinion.

Adding EVERYONE: I've seen a lot of people that just add people by the hundreds hoping to get a follow in return. The problem is, it doesn't have a very good return. From what I've seen, if you add 1500 people, you end up with about 100-300 followers. However, when someone follows me and I see a number like that, especially when it's from a style I don't have much interest in, i just arbitrarily ignore them. Having 300 followers with no interest in your music does not do you any favors whatsoever.


There ya go. Feel free to add to this list if you have anything.

Also, if you need a quick solution for the graphics thing, check out http://www.picnik.com all my graphics were done there based off random internet pictures.

[Dave]

This is a really good post buddy - would you mind if I used it as a guest blog on the main biab site?

I'll link to your soundcloud on it if you'd like

In fact, if someone would like to arbitrarily ask "How do you make the most out of soundcloud" I could make it a CQ (obvs crediting you for the advice you give)

[lame_duck]

Dave - how do you make the most out of soundcloud?

[izotonik]

good post

for graphics there's also http://pixlr.com/editor/, free online editor with a few cool filter fxs.

[ArchDemonXIII]

This is a really good post buddy - would you mind if I used it as a guest blog on the main biab site?

I'll link to your soundcloud on it if you'd like

In fact, if someone would like to arbitrarily ask "How do you make the most out of soundcloud" I could make it a CQ (obvs crediting you for the advice you give)

I give you free reign to do whatever you like with it, I wrote it for this site. Just remember if you say my name out loud it's pronounced ARK demon

[Dave]

This is a really good post buddy - would you mind if I used it as a guest blog on the main biab site?

I'll link to your soundcloud on it if you'd like

In fact, if someone would like to arbitrarily ask "How do you make the most out of soundcloud" I could make it a CQ (obvs crediting you for the advice you give)

I give you free reign to do whatever you like with it, I wrote it for this site. Just remember if you say my name out loud it's pronounced ARK demon

Awesome, thanks man! Good call on telling me about the Ark thing - I'd've been calling you Archie Demon otherwise

[ArchDemonXIII]

Good call on telling me about the Ark thing - I'd've been calling you Archie Demon otherwise

I'm only particular on the full name. Lots of people call me arch or archie. I also use archie13, A13 (both as A thirteen and A one-three) and demon. I'm like Jigga, I collect alternate ways of saying my name

[lame_duck]

How to get people onto Soundcloud from Twitter
(I learned this about general social marketing techniques - if I had anything on Soundcloud worth listening to then I'd be using this for that too)

Twitter is one big conversation. If you go in screaming "look at me! look at me! follow my link! listen to my stuff!" you'll get unfollowed pretty quickly.

Here's a ten-ish step guide to setting up and getting followers (and keeping them)

1. Create twitter account, post a few tweets about what you're doing (without any links to your stuff just yet) eg. "back from shops, playing with parametric EQ!" - you need to have some stuff there ready for when people start viewing your profile.

2. Speaking of profiles, create one. Get a background, get a decent profile pic (Can be catchy, funny, cute etc) and fill out your bio - feel free to link to your soundcloud / myspace from there). Safe bio's would be stuff along the lines of "24 year old composer, producer, tinkerer. Like beer and cheese toasties. Fanatical about Reason5 and Soundcloud,"

3. Add your friends, @DavePBrown and my twitter which is @filtuh (sorry dave for the blatant spam! - feel free to edit out ) and say hi, reply to a couple of tweets (See next points)

4. Don't be a gobsh*te tweeting about every little thing you do (unless for comedy effect) - about 10-20 tweets a day is cool, but beyond this it starts to get a bit attentionwh*ring. Join in conversations, but don't stalk. Ask open questions now and again ("best sample pack for soundtrack production?")

5. Add followers of your friends, but not too many. In the early days you'll follow more than will follow you back - this is fine and is standard practise. Don't worry if it's a big difference early on, it's fine. Add a few a day and interact with the ones you like and who interact back. Unfollow the ones who don't bother.

6. Add followers from the wider industry - find them on sites you go to, forums, articles, blogs etc. Interact with them too but don't get offended if they don't interact back. Keep the ones who give good information and retweet stuff they tweet about. Make yourself useful as an aggregator and sharer of valuable information.

7. Add followers from the global music industry - don't know how to find them? Try http://www.twellow.com/category_users/cat_id/194 and search all the subcategories - tweeps are listed by order of influence. Again, find influential people by all means and follow them, but don't expect a big following back - so be selective - follow people who you think will add value to your day - useful info or people who inspire you. Retweet their useful of funny posts and interact now and again especially if they ask questions - this is how you get noticed and followed back by the big boys & girls - by being useful, by being decent, by being respectful, by being interesting, by not being an arse.

8. Continue with all the above - just a few extra here and there at a time - it's a marathon, not a sprint.

9. NOW you can post your stuff for people to listen to. Create maybe an excerpt of 30 seconds worth of one of your tracks and add to soundcloud / youtube and tweet something along the lines of "here's 30s worth of new electro dubstep - experimental but so catchy!"
A few of these a week will or less often will mean that people will notice they're not being spammed by you and might actually listen then follow you on soundcloud / youtube etc

10. Rinse and repeat 5-9

11. Launch your social marketing career.....

[Dave]

How to get people onto Soundcloud from Twitter
(I learned this about general social marketing techniques - if I had anything on Soundcloud worth listening to then I'd be using this for that too)

Twitter is one big conversation. If you go in screaming "look at me! look at me! follow my link! listen to my stuff!" you'll get unfollowed pretty quickly.

Here's a ten-ish step guide to setting up and getting followers (and keeping them)

1. Create twitter account, post a few tweets about what you're doing (without any links to your stuff just yet) eg. "back from shops, playing with parametric EQ!" - you need to have some stuff there ready for when people start viewing your profile.

2. Speaking of profiles, create one. Get a background, get a decent profile pic (Can be catchy, funny, cute etc) and fill out your bio - feel free to link to your soundcloud / myspace from there). Safe bio's would be stuff along the lines of "24 year old composer, producer, tinkerer. Like beer and cheese toasties. Fanatical about Reason5 and Soundcloud,"

3. Add your friends, @DavePBrown and my twitter which is @filtuh (sorry dave for the blatant spam! - feel free to edit out ) and say hi, reply to a couple of tweets (See next points)

4. Don't be a gobsh*te tweeting about every little thing you do (unless for comedy effect) - about 10-20 tweets a day is cool, but beyond this it starts to get a bit attentionwh*ring. Join in conversations, but don't stalk. Ask open questions now and again ("best sample pack for soundtrack production?")

5. Add followers of your friends, but not too many. In the early days you'll follow more than will follow you back - this is fine and is standard practise. Don't worry if it's a big difference early on, it's fine. Add a few a day and interact with the ones you like and who interact back. Unfollow the ones who don't bother.

6. Add followers from the wider industry - find them on sites you go to, forums, articles, blogs etc. Interact with them too but don't get offended if they don't interact back. Keep the ones who give good information and retweet stuff they tweet about. Make yourself useful as an aggregator and sharer of valuable information.

7. Add followers from the global music industry - don't know how to find them? Try http://www.twellow.com/category_users/cat_id/194 and search all the subcategories - tweeps are listed by order of influence. Again, find influential people by all means and follow them, but don't expect a big following back - so be selective - follow people who you think will add value to your day - useful info or people who inspire you. Retweet their useful of funny posts and interact now and again especially if they ask questions - this is how you get noticed and followed back by the big boys & girls - by being useful, by being decent, by being respectful, by being interesting, by not being an arse.

8. Continue with all the above - just a few extra here and there at a time - it's a marathon, not a sprint.

9. NOW you can post your stuff for people to listen to. Create maybe an excerpt of 30 seconds worth of one of your tracks and add to soundcloud / youtube and tweet something along the lines of "here's 30s worth of new electro dubstep - experimental but so catchy!"
A few of these a week will or less often will mean that people will notice they're not being spammed by you and might actually listen then follow you on soundcloud / youtube etc

10. Rinse and repeat 5-9

11. Launch your social marketing career.....

Another great post... I'm starting to think I should do a 7 day spotlight on music-based social media. Just need some articles for facebook... myspace is probably redundant now so perhaps setting up your own blog could be another one. Any ideas?

[Dave]

Duh, I forgot frickin' YouTube.

Ooh ooh, or maybe it should be a 7 day guide for each different social media outlet that people can follow along with! So if you follow each day it'll get you into the habit of using it and trying new promo methods. Like:

Day 1: Introduction, set up your account, add 10 producers you admire
Day 2: Tweet a link to one of your songs, then post your twitter in the comments - add 5 other random people from the comments and let them know what you think of their song.
Day 3: Reply to 5 of your favourite producers on twitter. See if it starts a conversation.
etc...

Might inspire people to be more active in the promotion of their music (an area a lot of people fall down on, even if they're amazing with the production side of things!)